The bar-tab story for the derivation of the name always sounded a little
forced. I have never heard such score-keeping terminology in any other account
of mid-nineteenth century bars. (Among my forebears are the proprietors of the
Kelley & Goodman saloon in Plentywood, Montana.) But I am no expert.

By 1876, when Twain wrote to a friend in San Francisco ( and the letter made
the  newspapers in SF and Virginia City) to give the riverboat story, he was
already accepted in the east. His father-in-law was already dead and he seemed
likely to stay put in the family. I am not sure who he was supposed to be
fooling by hiding a reputation for bachelor dissipation in the west.

What is the authority for the bar version?

Dennis Kelly